Queensland Open: Another fairytale ending?

This week’s Queensland Open field will include all of the top eight players from this year’s current Von Nida Tour OOM headed up by Western Australian Tony McFadyean.

Spence and McIntosh are again expected to contend this week, with Adam Bland, Andrew McKenzie, Marty Doyle, Ryan Haller and Peter Senior also tipped to be among the leaders come the back nine on Sunday. Doyle, who played in this year’s British Open, yesterday rated the Ipswich layout highly, saying the greens were in particularly good condition.

“To be honest, that’s all we’re really interested in. If the greens are in good shape, then you’re a chance of shooting good scores,” the Victorian said.

The fairytale story of Steven Bowditch at last year’s Queensland Open has a great chance of being repeated this week at Ipswich Golf Club such is the talent on show. That is the belief of Queensland PGA tournament director David Podlich, who said the Ipswich galleries should not underestimate the strength of the 156-strong field just because there was a lack of “household names” contesting the Von Nida Tour event.

Down on his luck and virtually broke going into last year’s Open, Bowditch suddenly hit form at the right time, winning in Ipswich before finishing in the top fives at both the Australian Open and Australian Masters. He later won the Jacob’s Creek event in South Australia and this week secured his card for next year’s US PGA Tour with a fourth-placed finish on the Nationwide Tour.

Podlich said a player such as Melbourne’s Marty Doyle was the perfect example of a player who could emulate Bowditch by kick-starting his career with a win in Ipswich this week. “Marty has failed just to get to the next level, and the next level is not just competing in a major tournament but winning a main tour event,” he said.

“Marty very easily could step up in and win a tournament like the Australian Open or Australian PGA this year and if Marty does that we might be telling the same story next year about him as we did about Steven.”